LETTERS

Good news

I just wanted to thank you for the column written in the Saturday/Sunday, July 23-24 edition, “Shelter dog has trust issue,” by Renee Ordway.

It was nice to read a positive story on how some people really care about taking in and loving shelter pets. Hip, hip hooray!

Thanks, Renee, for caring, and I hope after reading your story more people will open their hearts and give an animal a loving home.

Terry Hutchinson

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Hampden

Double jeopardy risk

America has now been placed in double jeopardy of economic chaos and national failure by a cadre of politicians and their owner-operators whose only religion is greed and personal self-aggrandizement.

The first recession we experienced after Bush and Cheney let monetary gambling addiction by Wall Street, big banking, derivative games, hedge fund cheats and an international corporate conspiracy nearly pushed us all over the brink. Big banks took the money and ran while Bush and Co. smirked, and are still pretending Obama is to blame.

Our country is now again in double jeopardy of failure and a true depression. A default on our debt will be catastrophic for what’s left of the American Dream — built by the hard work of many generations in a true free market capitalist system. Home loan and small business interest rates will soar just like credit cards rates, if one can even gets in the door to apply for one.

Our present system of monopoly capitalism by big business from away is more of a threat to the American way of life than any big government bureaucracy could possibly invent by itself.

We must all immediately call on our two honorable senators to help bring this madness to a halt, before we all go over the dam on Aug. 2. We must not have any more families torn apart, their homes now starting to rot away, because our social contract has been broken, while our skilled jobs were sold offshore.

Paul Averill Liebow

Bucksport

Wind story missed lead

Driving down Route 3 toward Belfast on Tuesday, I happened to see caravans delivering three enormous wind turbine blades in the opposite direction. The sight of those blades was inspiring — not only as marvels of engineering, but also because they represent clean power generation right here in Maine.

The same day, a friend forwarded me your recent story about the Rollins Wind project. It was so disheartening that Brad Blake and his planned protest took the lead in that story, rather than the real, innovative benefits that will stem from this project.

Our nation, and our world, are facing crises on many fronts, including energy, our economy and global security. Wind power is no silver bullet. But the Rollins Wind project alone could generate up to 60 megawatts of electricity, quite literally out of thin air.

Maine has a real chance to be a leader in the northeast when it comes to generating wind energy. That should have been your story’s lead.

Parke Burmeister

Portland

Faith, politics joined

I applaud the governor’s courage to express his deep faith by public proclamation in support of prayer. The BDN’s editorial stated, “faith dwells deep in the heart. It certainly can provide a powerful personal motivation and guidance for public service. But political discourse, by contrast, is external and public and its currency includes ideas and arguments, not answers to prayer or scriptural principles.”

This is a flawed argument. There is no contrast between these inner and outer realities. What happens on the surface must be the result of what is foundational within. If the governor denied his faith and refused to express it publicly, there would be conflict in his own character. He would lack integrity.

Political action is the result of what those who are active in politics believe about what their God, or “not God”, wants for the world. They can’t be separated out. Respect for people of other faiths does not mean we should never talk about our own.

Furthermore, the God in whom I believe is the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, about whom the world desperately needs to hear, and without whom no politics will be blessed. That is exclusive, but I have a political right to say it, just as others have a political right to deny it.

The deepest level of political debate is always going to be about what we believe to be right, and the debate about God will govern the debate about economics.